Tales of the Fallen issue 6

Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	January 6, 2010
Cover date	January 2010
Written by	Chris Mowry
Art by	Alex Milne
Colors by	Josh Perez
Letters by	Chris Mowry
Editor	Andy Schmidt
Associate editor	Denton J. Tipton
Continuity	Movie continuity

Arcee finds herself as the subject of a twisted Decepticon experiment.

Synopsis

The events of this book take place between Reign of Starscream #5 and Alliance #4.

As the ship Arcee is on enters a planet's atmosphere, Thundercracker appears and blasts the ship from the sky. Arcee is trapped in the craft's remains as her shipmates leave the wreckage to battle Thundercracker. When she finally frees herself, she finds it has gone strangely quiet, for Thundercracker has emerged from the battle victorious. As he approaches her and says he's glad to see her, she blacks out.

She wakes up later with a scream, horrified to see her dead and dissected body on a table in front of her. She is in the laboratory of Flatline, a Decepticon field medic, and her spark has been transferred to a protoform body. Flatline notices she is awake and reports to Thundercracker that he thinks her spark is not strong enough to power "the rest". Thundercracker disagrees and tells Flatline to try again, without making any more mistakes, as they're running out of protoforms. While Thundercracker heads down to see their new warriors for himself, Flatline leaves to gather more supplies, telling Arcee to stay put.

As she looks around, Arcee is surprised to see Skids and Mudflap in an energy cage. The Twins note that A) Arcee "doesn't look right" and B) "none of them do". This leads Arcee to further notice the two lifeless protoforms next to her, and wonder aloud what is going on. The Twins debate over which one should answer her, but when she cuts them off and demands they just tell her, Flatline returns and answers her for them: Arcee's spark was saved by the medic as part of an experiment to speed up the development of new protoforms and quickly produce more Decepticon soldiers.

Flatline also explains that he only did part of the dissection, with most of the initial damage having been caused by Thundercracker. The bot in question comes in just in time to hear this, and claims he was happy to do so. Arcee feels a surge of hatred over Thundercracker killing her teammates, but can't yet remember his name. Thundercracker explains that Arcee was the one who gave him the scar on his neck and admits that he did get carried away. Flatline then asks Thundercracker for help, prompting Arcee to ask who he is and about the transfer. Flatline introduces himself and explains more about his experiments, as well as how he tried unsuccessfully to reprogram Skids and Mudflap's processors. Flatline notes the failure doesn't concern him, as he feels he's on the verge of an even greater breakthrough, and he powers Arcee down. Once she's unconscious, she has visions of her teammates falling before Thundercracker just before she's dispatched herself. When Flatline completes the transfer, she feels all her memories rushing back all at once in all three bodies. Delighted, Flatline runs off to get a fourth hatchling for her to power.

Once Flatline is gone, Arcee blasts the control box locking Skids and Mudflap in their cell. However, she still can't break her restraints, so she asks them both to free her. Unfortunately, both Skids and Mudflap are still rattled from their botched reprogramming; they only understand every other word she's saying and can't even remember that they're Autobots. Eventually, they return the favor and unlock her restraints just in time for Flatline to return. The medic is shocked and amazed that all three protoforms share Arcee's thoughts and consciousness and tries to subdue her himself. Unfortunately for him, they also share her firepower and hatred for him, and one of them pelts him with chunks of her old body.

Overwhelmed, Flatline beats a retreat as Arcee's Elita-1 self checks on the twins. Thankfully, their brains have started firing on more cylinders, and they're more motivated to help Arcee, especially since those Decepticon jerks stole their ship. Hopeful, Arcee lead Skids and Mudflap through the outpost's corridors. Along the way, they're accosted by Flatline and a horde of Dreadwings and Payloads. Flatline feebly tries to get Arcee to calm down, saying she's just suffering side effects from the transfer and that he can fix her. Arcee has none of that, and as her Elita-1 and Chromia selves scrap the drones, her Arcee self leads Skids and Mudflap to safety. Just as Elita-1 and Chromia gain the upper hand, Thundercracker shows up and incapacitates them both. Once she gets the twins to the exit, Arcee catches up with her other two selves, guided by their shared visions, before a disgusted Thundercracker can execute Elita-1. At first, Thundercracker isn't worried, warning Arcee that it didn't end well for her last time they fought. But even he is quickly outmatched by the vengeful Arcee, who admonishes him for killing her friends and even his own kind. Before Arcee can finish the job, however, Thundercracker escapes.

Lamenting losing her target, Arcee and her components try to track down Flatline, only to find he is long gone and that he's activated a stash of explosive charges. Disgusted with Flatline's cowardice, Arcee and the twins escape the outpost as it self-destructs. They eventually find the twins' ship and depart. Before boarding, Arcee muses on her past mistakes and her vendetta against Thundercracker, as well as whether or not she was destined for greater things. At the same time, a wounded Thundercracker crouches against a mountainside and bitterly watches her ship take off. Once the craft achieves orbit, Arcee starts broadcasting on various channels, hoping to pick up more Autobots, remarking that there's strength in numbers.

Featured Characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons
Arcee (1) Mudflap (4) Skids (5) Elita-1 (6) Chromia (7)	Thundercracker (2) Flatline (3) Class Alpha drone units (8) Class Beta drone units (9)

Quotes

TBA

Notes

Continuity notes

This issue finally gives a reason behind Arcee's new robot mode and how she came to be a Tripartite Cybertronian, previously explained away by... absolutely nothing.
It also "explains" the twins' dopey behavior in the film as the result of Flatline's attempted reprogramming of their brains. So... brain-damage makes you talk "street". Gee.

Other trivia

Cameos: Breakaway, Clocker, Optimus Prime, Starscream (all in flashback)
The Decepticon Drones have been redesigned to look more Cybertronian and alien.

Covers (3)

Cover A: The three Arcee "sisters" by Alex Milne
Cover B: The Arcee sisters fighting Thundercracker, art by Carlos Magno and colors by Josh Perez
Cover RI: Text-free version of Cover A